Press Releases

“The Rapporteur’s findings should be a wake-up call for government. Child poverty isn’t only happening elsewhere, it’s here in the UK and it’s rising. It’s in families where parents can’t work because of illness or disability but mostly it’s in families who work for low wages while costs are rising.

"Wherever you are in the UK, you are never far from seeing the impact of poverty and austerity policies on the most vulnerable.

Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) welcomes some of the changes to draft regulations governing the migration of people on existing benefits to universal credit but warns that the DWP has passed up an opportunity to reduce the risk that claimants will be left with no money if their existing benefits are stopped before their universal credit claim is up and running. The Social Security Advisory Committee, CPAG and other organisations recommended that existing benefit claimants should be moved to universal credit automatically so that the responsibility for ensuring people don’t have income gaps lies firmly with the DWP.

Child Poverty Action Group warmly welcomes the Chancellor’s decision to increase the work allowances in universal credit by £1,000 but warns that a root and branch review of the design of universal credit is still needed, before the benefit is near fit for purpose. As yet there has been no announcement of an end to the benefits freeze. Since 2010 £37bn of funding has been removed from social security.

WORKING FAMILIES FALL SHORT OF MINIMUM LIVING STANDARD

The overall cost of a child over 18 years (including rent and childcare) is £150, 753 for a couple and £183,335 for a lone parent. But work doesn’t pay low-income families enough to meet a no-frills standard of living, new research from Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) shows.(1)

A combination of rising prices, benefits and tax credits freezes, the introduction of the benefit cap and two-child limit, the bedroom tax, cuts to housing benefits and the rolling out of Universal Credit have hit family budgets hard. Life has been getting progressively tougher for families on low or modest incomes over the past ten years, with families on in-work and out-of-work benefits hardest hit, the report warns.

Working people claiming universal credit are having their benefits capped when they shouldn’t be, and losing the effects of ‘work allowances’ worth up to £258 per month simply because of the dates on which their paydays and universal credit 'assessment periods' happen to fall, new evidence from Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) shows. Last month the Work and Pensions Secretary acknowledged the need to look at “ … payment cycles for those in work.” (3)

In the worst cases workers are losing hundreds of pounds each year simply because their paydays clash with the monthly 'assessment periods' in universal credit (UC). Far from offering much-vaunted simplicity, universal credit rules leave many workers unable to predict what their payments will be from one month to the next. People who happen to move house at the ‘wrong’ point in their assessment period can also lose hundreds of pounds in help with rent.

Child Poverty Action Group welcomes the Work and Pensions Secretary’s announcement today that arrears for up to 70,000 disabled people who were underpaid when they were moved from incapacity benefit (IB) to employment and support allowance (ESA) will be backdated to the date that they moved to ESA. The announcement follows legal action from CPAG which challenged the Department’s original decision to limit backdating of the arrears to 2014, the date of a tribunal decision.

“Our analysis with IPPR last year found 200,000 children will be pulled into poverty by the two-child limit. Today’s DWP statistics now show it’s already having a damaging impact – and at a fast pace. These are struggling families, most of them in work, who will lose up to £2,780 a year - a huge amount if you’re a parent on low pay.

"It was sobering enough to learn from the DWP's own survey last week that four in ten people claiming universal credit have financial problems many months into their claim. Now we have an NAO report confirming just how miserable the experience of claiming universal credit is for hundreds of thousands of people who rely on it. Organisations working with claimants have been saying the same to the DWP for many, many months.

Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has called for key cuts to Universal Credit to be reversed following new DWP evidence showing a large number of claimants are struggling to make ends meet many months into their claims. The survey also shows a significant number of claimants had no confidence in their ‘claimant commitment’ – the document setting out what claimants must do to receive universal credit, including work-related requirements. A full fifth of claimants (21%) were unable to submit their claim online mainly due to difficulties using computers or the internet.